| →
Pigeon
.—
1859 1860 1861 |
|
Pigeon, their Differences and Origin
.
1866 1869 |
|
Pigeon
,
their Differences and Origin
.
1872 |
|
|
a breed intermediate between
two
very
distinct
breeds could not be got without extreme care and long-continued selection; nor can I find a
case on record of a permanent race having been thus formed. |
|
Breeds
of
the
Domestic →
Pigeon
.—
|
| Believing that it is always best to study some special group, I have, after deliberation, taken up domestic pigeons. I have kept every breed which I could purchase or obtain, and have been most kindly favoured with skins from several quarters of the world, more especially by the Hon. W. Elliot from India, and by the Hon. C. Murray from Persia. Many treatises in different languages have been published on pigeons, and some of them are very important, as being of
antiquity. I have associated with several eminent fanciers, and have been permitted to join two of the London Pigeon Clubs. The diversity of the breeds is something astonishing. Compare the English carrier and the short-faced tumbler, and see the wonderful
in their beaks, entailing corresponding differences in their skulls. The carrier, more especially the male bird, is also remarkable from the wonderful development of the carunculated skin about the
and this is accompanied by greatly elongated eyelids, very large external orifices to the nostrils, and a wide gape of mouth. The short-faced tumbler has a beak in outline almost like that of a finch; and the common tumbler has the singular
inherited habit of flying at a great height in a compact flock, and tumbling in the air head over heels. The runt is a bird of great size, with
massive beak and large feet; some of the sub-breeds of runts have very long necks, others very long wings and tails, others singularly short tails. The barb is allied to the carrier, but, instead of a
long beak, has a very short and
|
